Using historic data to analyse death rates for men and women who endured famines, epidemics or were sold into slavery, researchers found that in nearly every case, women outlived male counterparts by years.

The studylooked at events in history such as the 1933 Ukraine famine in the Soviet Union, the 1845 Irish potato famine, life expectancy of slaves in Trinidad in 1813; the Swedish famine of 1772-1773, survival rates of freed slaves from the US settling in Liberia between 1820 and 1843 and deadly measles epidemics in Iceland in 1842 and 1882.

In comparing male and female birth and death records they found that females virtually always lived far longer

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IMAGE Getty

The Ukraine famine (1932-1933)

For example, during the Irish potato famine life expectancy went from 38 years for both sexes, to 18.7 years for men and 22.4 years for women and in the Ukrainian famine life expectancy dropped from 41.58 to 7.3 years for men, and from 45.93 years for women to 10.9 years.

The study points to the idea that women have a survival advantage which is biologically innate.